Florida Sen. Marco Rubio justifies skipping not one, but two critical Senate votes aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood. Rubio says those were “show votes,” and that only by electing a Republican president can taxpayers hope to stop sending $500 million to the baby body parts trafficker every year.

Conservative grassroots voters, feeling betrayed by a GOP that immediately funded President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty for law-breaking foreigners and sold out U.S. sovereignty to a hugely unpopular global governance deal known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, appear to be turning up the heat on establishment candidates.

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Rubio shifted the frame, subtly reinforcing the notion that Congress is hopeless so long there is no Republican in the Oval Office wielding the pen. Senator Rubio is a victim of the system; President Rubio would run it.

“What you just described is why I’m running for president. I’m not even running for re-election in the Senate. I’m running for president because we can’t change any of this unless we have people like that in the presidency,” Rubio said, according to the Des Moines Register. “But we need to fight them in the court of public opinion. That’s the other thing we have to do. Sometimes they don’t even try.”

“You have these horrifying [Planned Parenthood] videos put out,” Rubio said. “And instead of saying: ‘We’re going to spend two to three months going out and into town halls, and aggressively talking to people about what this means, and convincing people that aren’t convinced yet, that we’re right on his cause so they can pressure their senator or congressman to vote the right way.’”

Exactly to whom Rubio talking is unclear: Those who watched the videos of Planned Parenthood operatives discussing dismembered babies over salads and cabernet or laughing while looking at a baby boy ripped to pieces on a table are either 1) against giving Planned Parenthood another cent of their tax dollars, or 2) liberals with a deficient sense of disgust who project what revulsion they can feel onto political opponents. Mass media allows instant, nationwide distribution of the Planned Parenthood exposes carried out by genius David Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress team. Senators aren’t needed to act as conduits to the public.

“What do they say instead?” Rubio continued. “‘We’ll, we’re not going to win this vote anyway so we’ll do a show vote, but ultimately the president’s not going to sign it and we lost. If you don’t even try, of course you lost. And more importantly, you haven’t set the table for the time when you can make that difference,” Rubio said.

At least Rubio admits the incompetence of GOP leadership in the Senate, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the helm. Yet he uses it as leverage to beg voters to elect more Republicans. This is a familiar ploy: Elect more of us, and we’ll deliver. As Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said in a speech to the Senate last week, Republicans told voters in 2010 that they needed a majority in the House to repeal Obamacare. Then, in 2014, they told voters they needed a majority in the Senate to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. Now, having both failed to stop parts of Obama’s agenda and pushed others, they want the same voters they spit on to deliver to them the presidency.

Rubio has the worst attendance record in the Senate: He missed 81 votes this year alone. After delivering calculated speeches to earnest pro-life audiences, he skipped the two votes to fund Planned Parenthood and the government, failing to go on the record as an opponent to the abortion mill.